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Is $70.04 OK?
This is the question the little credit card slider box in front of the glossy LCD screen at the somewhat posh, but nearest grocery store asked me tonight. You’d think that for $70.04 (and if I could capitalize numbers in rage, I would), you’d get more than 3 medium-sized eco-friendly reusable grocery bags full of food. Now mind you, I made two mistakes: I bought toothpaste, which is known to have, oh, 500% markup everywhere and about 800% markup at grocery stores rather than the drugstore or Target. And I bought two tubes (but still, they were on sale, 2/$5). The second mistake was probably going to the somewhat posh store to begin with, where most things are pricier. Oh wait! Three mistakes: I choose the posh store because they have my favorite brand of German pickles ($6 for a small “barrel”), which I bought, knowing that right now I am in a pickle phase. (And no, not pregnant. If you knew these pickles, you’d be in a pickle phase, too!)
(I. Love. These. Pickles. They are worth every of the 600 pennies.)
But seriously. My purchases were only one or two nights’ and one or two lunch’s worth of food, and it’s a little absurd how expensive food is these days (even without the pickles and Crest) . Most trips to this particular store end with me in some sort of grocery-induced rage. I should know better.
On the bright side, one of the grocery bags I mistakenly brought with me is a adorable pint-sized wine bag, complete with 6 petite compartments for wine bottles, into which the bagger decided to put the two tubes of aforementioned overpriced toothpaste (each in a separate compartment, of course), the black olives, the can of corn, the salsa, and a block of cheese. Can you almost taste a dinner of burritos in my future? Yum. It was priceless. See?
So cute! But not worth $70.04.
Anyway, the real reason this annoys me so much? Because I came home, unpacked my groceries and proceeded to putz around on the computer, where upon I found a blog post on True Up about an Amy Butler sale ($7/yard! Wow!) at a store called the Virginia Quilter. I then, without much thinking, budgeting, or rationalizing proceeded to drop an amount all-too-similar to $70.04 on some lovely Amy Butler Midwest Modern fabric that I’ve been covetting. I feel simultaneously guilty and thrilled. Mostly guilty. (I’m pretty sure I don’t get to be filled with rage about the price of food when I do stuff like this, yet, it persists.) On the other hand (begin rationalization phase), I know this fabric will fill me with more hours of joy than the food, and that the things I make will be lasting and useful. Right?
Still, I’m having a case of buyer’s remorse. I know there are other Amy addicts out there. Anyone want to help me rationalize away my fabric-buying guilt?
Posted by robyn on July 1st, 2008 under crafts | 11 Comments »Bernina Aurora 440 QE: What’s in the box?
The box. Brown, cardboard, heavy.
The first thing you see when you pop it open: Instruction manuals, brochures, the knee lifter, a DVD (that I still haven’t watched) and various other warranty info and such.
Oh-so-cute little Bernina all tucked away in there! On all sides are various accessories: at the top of the pic is the dark blue carrying bag; just in front of the carrying bag is the accessory cabinet attached to the machine; to the right is the walking foot in its box, plus the foot pedal. In front (bottom) is the clear plastic extension table and a baggie of feet and various other stuff.
Here’s everything unpacked onto my kitchen table. Anyone know what that random plastic thing in the middle is (above the extension tray)? I haven’t bothered to look that up yet. But, roughly clockwise from the top left: Accessory cabinet; knee lifter; Bernina Stitch Regulator (BSR)box; walking foot box; oil; foot pedal; extension table; power cord; screwdriver, cleaning brush, seam ripper; “hump jumper” plastic thingy; four metal bobbins, allen wrench; thread spool caps; other included presser feet.
I love stuff like this - a handy cord wrapper on the bottom of the foot pedal. Down with messy wires!
A closeup of the presser feet. From left to right: #1 -reverse pattern foot (a.k.a. the normal, regular ol’ foot), #3a - buttonhole foot with slide, #4 - zipper foot, #5 - blindstitch foot, #20 - open embroidery foot, #37 - patchwork foot, #9 - darning foot. Next to the darning foot is some metal thing that I don’t know what to do with yet (thoughts, anyone?). I have a class the week after this one with the salesperson at the store I bought it from that will hopefully enlighten me a bit!
A very pretty box, which contains the BSR attachment.
The inside of said box. Very cute! The BSR has three feet. One is already attached to the BSR - the closed toe freemotion foot. The one on the left is the open-toe freemotion foot, and the one on the left is the transparent foot with crosshairs.
The box for the walking foot included with the machine. My first walking foot ever! I just read that this baby goes for $125. I had no idea they were so expensive!
The walking foot plus additional things that I will learn about at some point. More of those mysterious curvy metal things enclosed here, which is a clue!
The blue canvas bag that will eventually store the machine, accessory cabinet, pedal, and extension table.
The machine! In all its glory! This puppy is heavy and sturdy…
Finally, stuff I got the dealer to give me for free during my price negotiation. The plastic things are shelves for the accessory cabinet. The bobbins are insanely expensive - 12 for 20 bucks, so I had them throw in two packs of them for me. I have another presser foot on the way, too - the teflon foot, so I can go sewing some oilcloth. I also asked the dealer for some nicer thread, too. I think most of that is Mettler and the purple one is Isocord.
Now that I have a machine capable of embroidery stitches, I’ll have to go learning about thread. Anyone know any good primers or articles on what kinds of thread are good? What do you use?
And there you have it, folks. The contents of the Bernina box! I’ve been experimenting on the machine slowly but surely, getting to know the awesomeness of this machine, and I will have more to report soon!
Posted by robyn on June 22nd, 2008 under bernina 440 qe, crafts, sewing, sewing machines | 20 Comments »Free Spirit Fabric
Have you all seen this fabric yet? I saw it on True Up. It’s new, by Erin McMorris by Free Spirit. Yum!
Lookit What I Got!!!
After much searching over a series of months, models, and dealers, I have finally made a sewing machine decision. And after a love-at-first-use test drive, I brought it home today:
When unpacked, this glorious box looks even more glorious:
I never thought it would happen. I have a new sewing machine! It’s a Bernina 440QE! It is lovely and beautiful and sturdy and smooth. I am officially in love.
Stay tuned for a few posts on my search experience, as well as more info on the machine itself. I hope to do a lot of mini feature reviews so that others can benefit from some info out on the Interwebs that I was unable to find throughout my search. Yippee!
Posted by robyn on June 20th, 2008 under bernina 440 qe, crafts, sewing, sewing machines | 6 Comments »Mobile
Here is the beginning of a mobile that will be for my dear friends Erika and Karen’s new baby. Or rather, the new baby’s incredibly decorated room, fully equipped with my latest obsession, Blik wall decals, as well as a fabulous green rocking chair, which is very soft and comfy and could lull anyone to sleep.
The birds and star are part of a small craft project that I conducted for her baby shower. Maria and I brainstormed some ideas that we could get people to contribute to, and her idea for a mobile seemed just right. I provided the fabric and felt squares and the templates for the different shapes, and guests cut out the shapes in whatever fabrics they wanted. Believe it or not, with a little poking and prodding, I got people to do it, and the end result will be very cool. One person even made her own design.
They will all hang in some way from an as yet undetermined hanging device. I have some ideas, but we’ll see if they come to be, or if there’s a backup plan involved. I just hope the end result is hip enough to coexist with the Blik and the chair goodness, not to mention the ensuing ultra-hip baby and parents-to-be!
Feeling Sari for Myself
OK, just to get my complaining out of the way so we can move on…. Delhi Belly has claimed another week of my life, and I’m getting annoyed about it. My lovely doctor was visited today, and after she finished praising the good Dr. Jolly’s choice of medications and bedside manner, she prescribed me yet another course of antibiotics, so we’ll see. And since I’m feeling whiny, can I just say that I now have a head cold to add insult to injury? Waah, waah, waah.
Glad that’s out of the way. Now I can talk about my fabric finds on my trip, which I’ve been meaning to do for days now.
So, there are fabric stores in India, but I ended up going the sari route instead, since it appears to be significantly cheaper (and more interesting) than buying fabric by the yard. Thus, I am now the proud owner of three beautiful Indian saris which may be morphed into other items at some point. Shopping for these saris was at first a really unnerving experience, but once I got used to it, it was really fun.
The routine goes something like this:
You walk into a sari shop, which is usually not huge. In fact, it will be quite small - say, 250 square feet? There are typically about 5 or 6 people working in this store, despite its size (and it will become clear why in a minute). The walls are lined with plastic bags containing fabric (or just the folded fabric itself). Like so:
As you approach the lovely bundles of joy, someone is on the ready to help you navigate them. Like this kind woman who worked in the sari shop in Delhi where two of my three saris came from. She appears to be doing some serious Vanna-White-style demonstration. Don’t think that we can’t see your belly through that sheer sari goodness, Mrs. Sari Lady!
Upon your arrival, she or one of the other 6 employees persistently beckon you to sit down on the seats in front of the big table. You think: What? Sit down? But I’m not sure I want anything yet and am not ready to commit… No thanks… Maybe later. What’s that? I *must* sit down? And you will bring me orange soda? Hmmm…. I’m suspicious, but OK. If I must, I will sit and drink your cool beverage poured and brought to me by a very cute child worker. That is, as long it contains no tap water, raw fruits or vegetables, and I can see the bottle it came from, because if you didn’t notice from my insanely white skin, I am a careful western traveller. Sure thing.
At this point, you’re feeling pretty stuck that you have to buy something. Shoot, people. How did you woo me with your Fanta??
(And WHY isn’t that boy in school? But that’s another blog post for another time.)
Next comes what I call the Sari Explosion. This is when one helpful employee becomes your salesperson, and proceeds, without your encouragement, to pull out saris from the wall that she thinks you may enjoy. Before your very eyes, stacks of neatly folded saris come out of the wall and onto the table. Do you like this one? No? How about this one? Or this one? Until the table looks like this:
Each sari that is discarded as “not your style,” “too ornate,” “not the right color,” or “not in my price range, please show me something cheaper” is put onto the discard pile like a battered playing card. Then, one of the many male employees that is lingering springs into action to fold that sari back to stackable perfection. Before your very eyes, its 6.5 meters is wall-ready and beautiful again. And then the boy comes back with his tray for that Fanta glass you just finished chugging. This is a magical place.
But then at this point, you are feeling terrible, because they’ve gone through all this work, pulled out 40 perfectly good saris, and you still aren’t even sure you want to buy anything at all. You are, of course, more indecisive than ever, and feel like a terrible person. But then! A sari that meets all of your criteria (that you didn’t even know you had, but 40 saris later has become crystal clear) jumps out at you and you nod your head yes before you can do anything about it. The lovely and patient salesperson asks politely: “May I put this aside for you?” This appears to be the lingo for - “You’re finally buying this one, right lady? Because seriously? It’s going to take my 6 other employees all afternoon to put these away…” Or so you think. But this is not America, where salespeople get resentful. This is par for the course. In fact, you might just be an easy shopper, comparatively speaking. At this point you start to realize that there are probably 80-sari shoppers, and maybe even 120-sari shoppers out there somewhere. Just maybe, you hope.
Anyway, my sari shopping led me to a handful of different stores, and the whirlwind that ensued at each store did not always lead to a purchase, but I did land myself 3 saris, and learned some negotiation skills along the way (never actually show interest in your future purchase. You’ll get a much better price).
Behold sari number 1:
A green little silk number with some paisley and a green border. Perfect for a bag lining, or something delicate.
And sari number 2:
A red and gold silk sari. In the second picture, you can see the hand-sewn heavier red fabric that is designed to allow the bottom of the sari to flow properly. Good to have - if I ever try to wear it, I’ll know which end is down.
And my favorite of the bunch, sari number 3, which is more a heavy brocade fabric:
This one is much heavier fabric (perfect for a nice evening handbag!), with a lot of different designs throughout the piece. It’s double sided, so one side is more red, and the other more teal. It has about three distinct sections, each with a different and flowing design and embellished with gold thread. The salesperson of this one told me it was a big deal that it was all woven with the same thread, and not three pieces joined together.
But what do I know. I’m just attracted to shiny things.
Posted by robyn on June 13th, 2008 under crafts | 6 Comments »Delhi Belly: 8; Me: 0
Well, I’m back home now from India. Half of me is screaming “Thank goodness,” happy to have non-spicy food options, the comforts of home, and my own bed. The other half is sad that I don’t get to stick around longer and see the real India instead of the inside of board rooms and busses. I left behind 8 lbs. with Mr. Delhi Belly. And come to think of it, I believe Mr. DB decided to sneakily stow his way onto my flight and visit here in the states for a while. I’m still not 100%.
Today I’m taking the day off to rest from a long couple of days of travel, but should be back in full swing tomorrow. In the meantime, I think I’ll look through some pictures and see what they look like.
Till later!
India!
A beautiful (but blurry) sari from a Delhi sari shop - this picture doesn’t do it justice!
So we’re through the first week of our trip, and it has been quite a whirlwind with great and some not so great experiences.
First, the good. The country is vibrant, filled with fantastically nice, extremely service-oriented people, interesting sites, culturally rich heritage, lots and lots of opportunities to buy saris (more on that later!), beautifully colored clothing, and so much vegetarian food, I don’t know what to do with myself. Also, the movies. While I can’t understand a word, I love the movies with all their dancing and over-the-top outfits. So, so good.
The bad: vast class differences like I’ve not seen many other places, disparity between the shiny new office buildings of the emerging IT companies and the beggars / shanty towns / roaming stray animals (oxen, monkeys, buffalo, elephants!) just a few feet away. Shocking poverty next to seemingly intense wealth. Infrastructure challenges of all kinds that make even the most underdeveloped US cities and towns look more advanced than most places here (at least in this area).
The really awful: I am insanely sick, like I have never been in my life. All that vegetarian food? Yeah. Well, despite my vigilance not to come into contact with the local water in any regard with finding only safe, uncontaminated food, I’ve had one of the worst 24 hours that I can remember. I am not overreacting. I will spare you the details, but suffice it to say, I am never eating anything again for as long as I live. Not even chocolate, or even homemade Twix bars (Ryan, are you reading? I mean it. Seriously. You can have them all). My dear roommate, who coached me through my illness, is now in the thick of it and I am returning the favor. Our resident doctor, Dr. Jolly, has been a saint.
The really awesome: The saris, the fabric, the clothing. Some of what I knew about saris before this trip came from Tyra banks and the Bollywood photo shoot from the season when they went to London. Since I trust Tyra as a source on all things Important and Good, I am sure I have been well educated in this regard. (By the way - India is a great country for many reasons, confirmed by the fact that they are showing this illustrious TV show (and this exact season) here in Delhi. Brilliant!)
There have been a few hours to go some sari shops and check out the scene. In my next post, I will write a bit about how fun it is to buy them, what the buying process is like, and the loot that I walked away with! They are beautiful to wear, but I bought two of mine with the intention of using for projects…though cutting these beautiful pieces of fabric up just seems wrong!
Hope you are all appreciating the microbe-reduced environs in which you live. Send some good microbe karma our way. More later!
Posted by robyn on May 24th, 2008 under crafts | 8 Comments »My Travel Companion
Here is the carry on bag that will accompany me on my trip to India. It’s my first bag with a recessed zipper, which was lots of fun to make, and should help with the potential pickpockets and such. The bag should be big enough to house a laptop, notebook, camera, a book for reading, my plastic bag of sub-3 oz toiletries, and my brand new noise-canceling headphones (a gift from my thoughtful husband, who is less optimistic than I am about the noise level on my bazillion-hour flight across the globe. He’s probably right, and I will get stuck next to a screaming 2-year-old, at which point I will be happy as a clam that I brought them along!)
All the fabric accents are Moda Blossom fabrics. I was wandering around in the quilting store not too long ago, when I came across a jelly roll full of fabric strips. The colors were just right, and they had just given me a gift certificate for 25 bucks, so guess what I walked out with?
Apparently you are supposed to be able to make entire quilts from one jelly roll of fabric, but that sounds like an awful lot of cutting up and sewing back together if you ask me! I like the strips for small bits of patchwork like on the bottom and edges of the bag. Here’s a better look at the recessed zipper:
The inside is lined with the very cute brown and pink Moda fabric, accented with spring green denim pockets:
This bag and I leave tomorrow night. I think I’ll squeeze in one more blog post before I go, but then I’ll be disconnected from the blog world for a couple of weeks. Have fun while I’m gone!
Posted by robyn on May 17th, 2008 under crafts | 4 Comments »Moving forward.
Here are some happy things going on right now:
- I finished grad school, which evokes a feeling I can sum up in one simple word: ThankTheGoodLordINeverThoughtThisDayWouldCome. This means many things, but most immediately that I will have an extra 15-20 hours/week of my life back and nary another subtle undercurrent of that “I-should-stop-doing-this-fun-thing-because-I-have-to-write-a-paper / finish-a-project / meet-with-my-group / construct-a-Powerpoint” feeling I am thrilled. Yay for me. Pomp and circumstance on Saturday!
- On Sunday, I leave for a two and a half week trip to India. It’ll be my first time and I am really excited. Any tips? Going to Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, and Pondecherry. I need fabric store recommendations, so chime in on the comments if you know where I can go! I plan to leave plenty of room in my suitcase for interesting findings over there.
- I have been crafting up a storm. I suppose this won’t be that impressive relative to you prolific crafters out there. But in the last week I have constructed 2 skirts, enhanced my zipper installation technique to avoid that pesky skirt-zipper-bump problem, planned for a new bag for the upcoming trip, and procured fabric for said bag. Skirt pics forthcoming.
- I went to the New Hampshire Sheep and Wool Fest. It was fun, and we saw sheep, alpacas, and a very impressive and adorable border collie sheep herding demonstration. I didn’t buy anything, demonstrating restraint I never imagined I had. I think I might want an alpaca at some point. They are practically irresistible, with their black liquidy adorable eyes. Sigh.
- New albums! Two of my favorite artists, who teamed up and call themselves The Weepies, have released a phenomenal album called Hideaway. Get thee to a DRM-free artist-supporting music store and get listening. It is addictive and wonderful and I want them to be really, really famous someday. You can help with this! I also purchased this gem of a CD recently by Mark Erelli. I’m also not sure why he’s not famous yet, since he’s one of the most thoughtful and talented songwriters I know.
- New blogs! Finally, have you discovered the True Up blog yet? It’s all about fabric and has lots of pictures of cute patterns.
So if you have any tips about going to India, where to buy fabric, how to bargain for it, and what price range I’m looking at, chime in. I’d love to know!
Posted by robyn on May 11th, 2008 under crafts, random | 8 Comments »This is Banjo & I:
I'm Robyn. Thanks for stopping by! This is my craft blog.
Contact me at robyn [at] dognamedbanjo [dot] com.
